Entries Tagged 'Recaps' ↓
March 19th, 2010 — Recaps, SMB Montreal, Upcoming breakfasts, Videos
Social Media Breakfast Montreal #2 recap video
Above you will find the link to a video post I’ve prepared (if anyone can send me a tip on how to actually embed the video in this version of Wordpress I’d be eternally indebted – can’t figure it out) in lieu of a giant write-up quickly recapping the first ever SMB Montreal (held Feb.17th), as well the official announcement of Event# 2 – A Social Media Conversation with Mitch Joel (President of Twist Image and author of Six Pixels of Separation) – set to go off on Thursday April 1st, 2010 at B-Side Bar & Lounge in Downtown Montreal.
Please check out the registration, ticket and event details here: Event Registration.
La Bistrote and Chef Dana Elsliger will be handling the food again, and the venue has moved to a bit of a larger space, which has kindly been donated by the B-Side Bar & Lounge’s Carlo Campisi. Thanks to my good friend Big Worm for the introduction. You can find them at 3616 St.Laurent in Montreal and stop in for drinks and dancing into the early morning.
Fortunately we’re breakfast people, so the space is available – although those in attendance are welcome to bust out some moves should the feeling strike!
Technical (read “unpreparedness”) difficulties prevented us from getting the event up on UStream Live the last go around but we fully intend to correct that foible and run the event here : http://www.ustream.tv/channel/moesass, as well as post highlights to this blog as well as on the Heelatch blog.
Feel free to reach me at either: jeff@socialmediabreakfast.com or jeff@heelatch.com.
March 5th, 2010 — Recaps, SMB DC
I’m going to have to give up on recapping Social Media Breakfast-DC. You can either blame or thank Alex Priest (@alexpriest) for that … take a look at his recap of our March Breakfast — Blogging the City. I joke that if he continued to write such great recaps, people would stop coming to the actual event 
Thanks again to our great speakers:
To Tom and Tiffany Bridge (@tbridge and @tiffany) from We Love DC (@weloveDC) for sharing their undying passion for this city with us and for teaching us that DC is like one of those friends you love — and when they date great people you feel happy for them but when they date terrible people you have to show tough love to let them know
Tto Amy Melrose (@amymelrose) from Free in DC (@freeinDCblog) for being genuine and for reminding us that DC is rich in culture that other things unrelated to politics, which she let’s us know about every day on her blog.
To Matt Rhoades and Luis Gomez (who was there in spirit!) from Borderstan (@borderstan) for sharing stories about their little piece of DC, where Dupont, Logan Circle, and U Street intersect; and for teaching us that blogging your neighborhood can make you (and your dog) a local superstar.
Finally, thank you you Frank Gruber (@frankgruber) and Jen Consalvo (@noreaster) for sharing the news about Digital Capital Week (@dcweek), 10 days of creative technology events, which will hit DC this summer, on June 11 – 20.
If you missed the breakfast, check out the live stream recording and a few of the pictures from the event. We hope you an join us next time!
Stay tuned for our April breakfast. Information will be posted on our EventBrite registration page: http://socialmediabreakfastdc.eventbrite.com
And another shout out to our March AND April (yay!) event partner:
Tungle.me:
Tungle.me makes scheduling meetings easy–across organizations, calendar systems, and time zones. Tungle.me is a free personal scheduling application that eliminates costly double bookings, time zone mishaps, and the endless
back and forth of finding a time to meet. Tungle.me synchronizes with leading online calendar systems and does not require registration.
February 23rd, 2010 — Recaps, SMB Waco
Today’s meeting was held at Panera Bread Company. About 12 of us braved the weather to talk about our topic of the month “All about Twitter”. Our Twitter hash tag is #wacosmb
Caryn Berger Brown facilitated the discussion to answer questions posed by the group.
Why do I need Twitter to promote my local brand?
It helps let people know about your current projects, the type of work you’re doing and with whom you are working. It even allows you to “name drop”.
Tips to find local businesses to follow in the Waco area:
* Check out The Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce @WacoChamber on Twitter to find local businesses.
* Visit the Twitter sites of other local businesses and see who they connect with.
* Begin paying attention to the location of Twitter members.
How do I prevent information overload?
The most common answer to this was to “skim or fast scan” the list of tweets and mark the ones you want to read as favorites, then go back and read only those favorite tweets.
Use Lists to sort tweets. Filter your Lists to just what you want to follow.
You can also subscribe to Lists by other Twitter members. If you are subscribed to another member’s List, you do not get all of their tweets on your home page. You just have to access their List to read new tweets.
What’s the best Twitter App?
The favorites listed are not in order of preference, as the favorite app depended on the topic being discussed at the time.
PeopleBrowsr – Social Network Dashboard Tool that allows you to set extensive search parameters.
Seesmic – Dashboard tool to manage your Twitter.
MarketMeTweet – Brand your tweets, schedule your tweets to post up to one year later, Twitter management, and advanced search.
TwiDroid – Droid phone Twitter client app. It even keeps your place while reading posts, so you don’t miss any tweets.
Echofon – iPhone Twitter client app to manage your Twitter on the go.
PockeTwit – Windows Mobile Professional (PocketPC) platform Twitter client app.
Other Interesting Info from our meeting:
You can use apps to link your Twitter and Facebook pages, with posts going both ways or just from one to the other. Use the Twitter app on Facebook. Facebook Fan Page Posts can also be added to Twitter.
GoogleChrome now offers a Mac version, and a version for web developers is in development.
The Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce is working on putting together a class “How to Get Started On FaceBook and Twitter”.
Join the Waco Social Media Facebook Group
February 2nd, 2010 — Recaps, SMB Seattle
Brand management is dead. In the new age of brand promise management, companies have to do more than just listen to customer feedback; they have to operationalize it in the development of new products, features and services. That was the compelling message of Ant’s Eye View co-founder and CEO Sean O’Driscoll (@seanodmvp) to the Social Media Breakfast Seattle audience on January 19th.
- Sean O’Driscoll, co-founder and CEO, Ant’s Eye View
The sold-out event, sponsored and hosted by Real Networks, attracted more than 100 attendees, nearly double the attendance of the first SMB Seattle breakfast in December. An additional 80 people followed the presentation online via the SMB Seattle live stream.
O’Driscoll’s lively presentation focused on how companies can create brand defenders, the people who not only have an affinity for a brand but are willing to stand up for it. According to O’Driscoll, the most passionate advocates are those who believe they played a direct role in the creation of specific products. When they see their suggestions and feedback embodied in products and services, they’re far more likely to engage with others in promoting the brand.
“If you’re brilliant at listening to customer feedback but you never close the loop and tell them what you’ve changed, you’ve completely missed it,” said O’Driscoll.
If you’d like to watch the full presentation, you can find it here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4087827
Sean’s slides are available via Slideshare at: http://www.slideshare.net/seanodmvp/smb-seattle-antseyeview
Photos of the event can be found on the SMB Seattle Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smbseattle
January 28th, 2010 — Recaps, SMB Chicago
When a user interacts with you using YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc, there is an understanding between you and the user as to what you will deliver.
There are three general content creation categories, (1) Bulletin Board, (2) Informational (3) Emotional. You should focus on one category for each effort. Sometimes, you can mix 1 & 2 or 2 & 3, but don’t try to do them all in one effort.
Bulletin Board – current news and events. These can be as simple as “new address 200 W. Main”. A Bulletin Board could also highlight an upcoming event. For the most part, this content is specific to a time and a place. Here is an example of a workshop video that was done for SCORE Chicago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-HXUF46R8c
Informational – “Our new facility is 3000 sq. ft. it includes ..” Product descriptions are also information videos. Training tips, insights into operations etc. Pointed answers to questions. Below you will find a product video and an answer to a question.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKdvEJDFRtE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LkxhWcDZYI
Emotional “ we are creating an environment that will …” A good video tour of a house would be emotional., connecting with you so that you want to live there. Emotional, does not have to be complex. Here is a short video done by Google about a person moving to Paris.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU
Restaurant postings are often emotional. Note the comments on this restaurant video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb41h5coP0o
A good news story combines, information and emotional. See this news report that I did with First Business News on web development.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1SHvebGW9E
Understand what is the goal of your content. Then, create a place that is consistent with that goal. You can have more than one channel or Twitter effort. One person in Chicago has 5 different Twitter accounts, each one targeted toward a different effort.
Jess Constable, a recent guest on my TV show, has a business that sells jewelry. To that end, she has a website that showcases her jewelry (bulletin board + information). www.jesslc.com . Separately, she maintains a blog that connects with a community providing insights into simplifying your live makeundermylife.com . While the efforts are complementary, she doesn’t sell on her blog.
January 28th, 2010 — Recaps, SMB Chicago
By Marcus Tewksbury
At one point or another I’ve heard someone define crazy as repeating the same exercise but expecting different results. Mentally I have this picture of an old Simson’s commercial where Bart or Homer keeps reaching for a Butterfinger after being repeatedly shocked. Basically, this is exactly how I see most marketers approaching the social space.
The metaphor here is to how the advertising world has learned to run itself by household level data supplied by the Neilsen’s of the world. Was this data every really useful? Did it ever shed insights on what really moved the needle? Or, did we just become so desperate to justify what we were doing we grew to accept them as a course of action. These statistics became an enabler to do our whim – kind of like my Weight Watchers diet.
Why then, when approaching social would we think things would be any different? Immediately, we’ve all jumped on the buzz bandwagon looking for justification. Problem is people have not “settled” yet and are still pushing for a social answer that is more accountable and more related to actual business performance.
As service providers then, the question is how do we step to the plate? How do we provide a measure that truly speaks to business value created? Start by finding the “client of the future.” Producing meaningful metrics is entirely contingent on dumping the current episodic, campaign driven mentality of marketing and re-orientating the go to market with a customer centric strategy. Look for folks who get the “4-B’s” or the like, they are few and far between. Conversely, you can continue to play the Pancho to your clients as they tilt their windmills with cries of “reach”, “popularity”, and “friends”.
January 27th, 2010 — Recaps, SMB Chicago
The Importance of Social Media for SEO
by Sky Opila
Yesterday, Walker Sands’ very own John Fairley moderated a discussion on social media and search engine optimization (SEO) at the Social Media Breakfast Chicago #3 event hosted by SCORE Chicago. John brought up a lot of great points for discussion in the group about social media and SEO, but after attending and discussing with the group I think there are some key takeaways everyone can start using today.
No doubt social media has a large influence on SEO. Take Walker Sands for example. If you Google a brand, such as ours “Walker Sands”, you will find that more than half of the links are influenced by social media. From our LinkedIn account, to Google reviews, to our Twitter stream and even our blog. Social media plays a large part in the content displayed in the search engine results page.
As John put it to the group, all of these social media sites are linking back to your Web site. And even though a lot of sites have adapted no follow links (meaning you may not get the benefit of link juice from them), they are increasing your visibility in the search engine results page.
So what does this mean?
Social media can and does influence your SEO. However, the goals for your brand may determine what strategy works best for you.
If you are an already well established brand, you may want to leverage social media to help you optimize for other keywords and phrases. For example, if chip giant Lays decided they wanted to enter the dessert game and offer chocolate-covered potato chips, simply putting it on their website may not be enough. As part of their marketing campaign they may leverage a blog to discuss the finer points of chocolate-covered potato chips or even YouTube videos about how to make and eat the chips properly. These social media tools in conjunction with their larger marketing campaign will help Lays rank for dessert ideas and chocolate-covered potato chips.
On the other hand, a less well-known and established brand may take a different approach to utilizing social media for SEO. This may include a startup company looking to fill out their brand more strongly. They might focus all of their social media and community building on branded items that help push their name to the top of the search engine results page and help fill out all of the results when someone searches for them.
John Fairley suggests that focusing strong efforts in some channels (the ones that specifically make sense for your business) is definitely better than spreading yourself too thin. He suggests that everyone should get a blog because that is the social media channel that you can most easily utilize to help influence search engine ranking.
Beyond a blog, if Facebook doesn’t make sense for your company, wait to use it. But if Yelp or Twitter does, make sure to not only leverage that but to build those communities into strong locations for your brand.
Thanks to John for leading a great discussion on social media and SEO, also wanted to shout out to the group members at the SCORE event that helped keep the conversation so lively!
Veronica Pasia
Gordon Dymowski
Hope Bertram
Jen Luby
Jenn Sutherland
Interactive Amy Ravit Korin
Laura Wasilewski
Tim McDonald
Elyse Devries
January 26th, 2010 — Photos, Presentations, Recaps, SMB DC
Other than to say thank you to our speakers: Geoff Living (@geoffliving), Shashib Bellamkonda (@shashib), and Alex Howard (@digiphile); our Heads of Table: Andy Carvin (@acarvin), Daria Steigman (@dariasteigman), Shonali Burke (@shonali), Josh Greene (@josh_greene), and Mike Schaffer (@mikeschaffer); and our guests! … there is not much left to say.
Our inaugural Social Media Breakfast DC (#SMBDC) was terrific!
Don’t believe me? Alex Priest did an AWESOME job recapping the event here.
A day before the Breakfast, Alex wrote a blog post version of his Breakfast presentation titled “Trends and challenges for social media in 2010.”
Before leaving for the Breakfast, Geoff posted a “Get Mobile Now” manifesto on his blog.
After the event, Shashib recapped the discussion and included a Flickr slideshow with pictures of the breakfast on his Examiner blog.
One of our Heads of Table, Shonali Burke, wrote a post about the Breakfast table talk, the engaging crowd and the new friends and connections our guests were made that morning.
Thank you all! You have us COVERED!
Check out our event pictures, courtesy of Rachel Rule (@rachelrule), Social Media Breakfast Co-organizer.
More pictures from Amy D. Phillips (@amydpp).
You’ll notice, no one looks groggy
Stay tuned for the next breakfast in early February. Information will be posted on our EventBrite registration page: http://socialmediabreakfastdc.eventbrite.com
Flickr user amydpp
PS: Check out Alex Howard’s awesome Breakfast presentation on “Social Media in 2010″, which he made using Prezi.
January 26th, 2010 — Recaps, SMB Chicago
January 22nd, 2010 — Recaps, SMB San Diego, Videos
As with all 1st events in a new year, you hope that you not only see loyal faces, but new faces. In San Diego, we’ve been having such great turnouts from both loyal and new folks; that I know 2010 is going to be a year to grow. I hope everyone out there reading this feels the same way, no matter what geographic area you reside. This session we took the opportunity to thank Erin Levenson for all her hard work in helping organize speakers, sponsors and content for SMBSD. She has officially started her new role as mommy and I know she’ll be back soon! So Social Media Breakfast San Diego #11 featured our same session framework:
- Good Morning Message – introducing new attendees and how they heard about the breakfast
- Top 10 in 10 – Ten newsworthy trends, apps, services, products, technologies, celebrities that fall within the social media sphere
- Featured Speaker – 20-30 minutes of sharing their story, case study, how-to’s, lessons learned and time for Q&A
- Active Social Project Updates – Our group donates its time to a local nonprofit to help them understand and define their social media strategy; sometimes building tools they need as well
- Feedback in 5 – A time to ask questions, talk about your challenges; leveraging the knowledge of the group to identify solutions
Session #11 featured Jimmy, founder of CARBONita Detail based in La Jolla, CA. What struck me about Jimmy, was his passion for making “green” a part of his business as well as his mission for helping families enjoy their vehicles all over again. Jimmy talked about how social media took him from door-to-door salesman to doubling his customers just from Twitter. His success came from:
- Educating customers
- Providing a clear value proposition
- Offering a sustainable business model that embraced “environmental-friendly” operations
- Not just entering, but creating conversations via Twitter
- Being real and having a voice within a defined niche like auto detailing
CARBONita is an eco-friendly auto detailing company, based in La Jolla, California. The best part is it’s mobile. If you’re in La Jolla or the surrounding area, at your home or office; you can rest assured your vehicle is getting the love it deserves while keeping a minimal carbon footprint. Connect with Jimmy at twitter.com/CARBONitaDetail
After Jimmy answered questions, we started the infamous TOP 10 in 10 and here is some content from that:
- Foursquare – How many of you checked in today? Now it’s not city-specific. GPS-enabled phones can enter new venues easier. So some nice marketing features baked into the app right? Unlocking badges, which potentially could be event-specific, sponsored, etc. City Leaderboards. Potential gold mine for local marketing and advertising? What do you think?
- Dell – So just because Twitter has no revenue model, doesn’t mean Dell is missing out. Revealing they made $3M via their DellOutlet Twitter account. So they started off by “listening” and ended up moving the sales process to a channel that offered quicker access. Is that good for Dell.com? Does that cannibalize their sales?
- Powered purchases the competition – The acquisitions of Crayon, StepChange & Drillteam cover mobile marketing, strategy, branded online communities and social networks like Facebook. As the market picks up, will consolidation and acquisitions continue? Who’s next? Is there a super group in San Diego in the near future?
- Pimp Your Page – If Facebook marketing starts with having a Fan page, what apps are critical to have? Here are 2 I found useful:
- Flashplay – lets you add any Flash elements to your page
- Static FBML – Adds box to your page where you can render HTML and FBML to customize experience.
- Hootsuite raises $1.9M – Founder says it’s on its way to becoming the leading social media dashboard. What do you think? @MrsKutcher uses Tweetdeck though …
- Tila Tequila Too Far? Tila tweeted over 160 times after her fiance past away, sharing intimate personal stories and having Larry King segment canceled.
- Jersey Shore – A lesson in content marketing or bust? From video spoofs, Jersey Shore name generators, tweets, events; MTV package characters, controversy and conversation to create a buzz. (http://www.unlikelywords.com/2009/12/08/jersey-shore-nickname-generator/) (http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/4d2ebc8f52/alyssa-milano-s-evolution-jersey-shore)
- CES Gets Social – Skype and Panasonic ink a deal to have video conferencing on your living room HDTV. Toys controlled by iPhone featuring augmented reality game. The buzz/conversations were endless. Anyone at CES? What was the most interesting new toy?
- Twitter provides keyhole into 7.0 earthquake in Haiti – With hundreds of photos captured and shared via Twitter and Facebook; people saw glimpses of the destruction. Is this type of usage a predecessor for apps that can help during disaster relief from pinpointing the worst areas to locating loved ones?
- Coca Cola’s Social Media Policy – 3 pages and to the point.
Updates about our Active Social Project: Think Together
- Social Media Strategy & Planning Sessions completed
- Porting blog over to Wordpress platform
- Connect with ThinkTogether on Twitter
SMBSD will be taking new nominations for its Active Social Project in February.
You can connect with SMBSD via: Twitter | Our Community | UStream (every session is live & recorded)